An actor’s attempt to create a new, distinct character every week, for fifty weeks. Video every FRIDAY.

Week 19: The Best of Leif Garrison

The Leif Garrison Project was a really good time. It was a full-time job for five months in late-’07/early-’08, and it’s gotta be the most fun I’ve had with any full-time job. It was produced by Aaron Nauta, Jon Labes, and myself for TitanTV (which I believe is now defunct… but that wasn’t Leif’s fault). Aaron and Jon had the concept and called me to see if I’d write it and play the main character. Sometimes there are easy Yeses in life. Leif was the nemesis of the main character of another show Aaron and Jon were doing for Titan called Braxton Price: The Price of Freedom (Braxton was played by Aaron). I called Bill Pullman who I knew from a previous project, and he agreed to do a cameo, which was a ton of fun (check out the extended Bill Pullman scene). There were many ups and downs, but I learned a hell of a lot (like how to edit, how to act on-camera, how to produce a webshow), and I had a great time. I’d definitely encourage you to check out The Leif Garrison Project in its entirety, and Braxton Price, too.

(Pardon the crap video quality for this episode. I didn’t have access to the original files here in CA, so I had to use the low-res ones.)

So. Let’s talk.

Where has 50in50 been, and where is it going? “The last new episode was on week 16, and now you’re at week 19! What happened to 17 and 18?” Totally valid questions. The answer is that I’ve been working really hard on the play I’m in, and I pushed pause on 50in50 until it was up and running. While I can push pause on a show, I cannot push pause on time, I’m afraid (I’m not that good of a producer), and weeks 17 and 18 rolled by. I lost some sleep over it, I’m not gonna lie. The idea of not actually doing 50 characters in 50 weeks didn’t sit well with me. Not at all. But I finally came up with a solution I’m happy with:

Down the road, some episodes will simply have to have multiple characters in them… or maybe I’ll do two in a week. I’ll do damnedest to make sure they’re all fleshed-out and as real as the next. No half-assing. Half-assed episodes just don’t sit well with me.

In other news, the play is open, and I’ve really, REALLY been enjoying being back onstage and doing live theatre again. No rush quite like it. I’ll write more about that soon.

It’s been hard to be away from 50in50, but I feel certain that it was the right thing for me to do. I’m looking forward to coming back to it with renewed energy, and a new character next week (I’m not sure if Leif counts toward the 50…).

One final note on Leif: we did fifteen episodes, had celebrity cameos, and music videos; some of the episodes were really smart and funny… but of all of them, which video continues to get more and more popular? This one: